Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Patience Makes Perfect

Another summer in Alaska has come to an end and we are now back in Colorado for Corle's last year of school here. After this year we will be back in Juneau to live year round. Our time here in Colorado has been great, but I am definitely looking forward to getting back to living in one place year round, having all of our stuff in one place (as opposed to storage units and various houses/apts). We have lived in 7 different places in the last 4 years, but once we move at the beginning of next summer we might be staying in the same place for several years. The thought of that sounds really nice after all this moving around.

My health has continued to generally improve with time. I had a great summer in Alaska in which my improved health allowed me to get out on some great adventures in the mountains. I didn't at all try to run with any kind of everyday consistency, but on two different occasions (once in June and again in late July/early August) I was able to put in some pretty decent time out in the mountains for 2 or 3 week stretches. It would be a stretch to say I was feeling great on any of these outings, but compared to how horrible I felt for most of the past year it's hard to complain. If my health improves as much in the next year as it has in the past year then I will feel 100% sometime in the not so distant future.

This said, back in Colorado now I can certainly feel that it is taking some time to feel strong and energetic. It may be that I'm just recovering from a few very strenuous weeks my last few weeks in Alaska, or maybe my body is responding to the 7,500 ft. altitude that I'm living at here, or maybe just a natural regression in my health/energy, as I have had dozens of phases throughout this whole ordeal in which I inexplicably feel much worse than the previous several days or weeks. At any rate, I'm planning to take it really easy until my body feels better and then hopefully I can get out on some good autumn outings here in Colorado before resting up and moving into a 2014 in which I can hopefully return to stretches of everyday running and see where that takes me. I miss running everyday, and being in shape to be able to race anytime I want, but more than anything I just like to be able to get outside and explore my surroundings on a regular basis. I feel so fortunate that I was able to do this as often as I was this summer, and I look forward to moving gradually back into a place in which I can pretty much do this whenever I want to.

Despite my still compromised health I was able to put on two amazing sessions of camp this past summer. We had our best summer yet, and are super excited to be planning on three more sessions for next summer. Check out the website if you are interested in that. Entry is now open!

In the meantime, I'm enjoying being a family man. Marrying Corle this past summer was probably the smartest thing I've ever done, and the fact that she comes with such a rad kid makes the deal even that much sweeter. Our days back in Colorado have been filled with making our new house here into a home for the three of us and this has been incredibly enjoyable. Beyond this I've been slowly taking on a few new hobbies to fill some of the void of not running so much and certainly I have a few projects in mind that I hope to put some more energy into in the coming months.

In short, life is good, although I do still have a ways to go to feel like my old self physically. In the meantime it's been fun (and challenging) to figure out how to navigate through my life without the physical health that I had grown so used to. I'd be lying if I said it's been easy, but if my experience of this past year has taught me anything it's that sometimes we just need to keep faith, and practice patience, and keep moving forward. Our minds and our bodies have an amazing ability to heal and recover, but we need to be willing to give them the space to do so.

As usual, I am impressed by your insight and eloquence. I was thinking about you last week, while watching the UTMB and running in the area. Wouldn’t it be nice to finally meet you in person there in a couple of years! But you are right, first things first …